One Bite at a Time

Monday, April 2, 2012

The Session

Mike Dennis is best known (to me, at least) as the writer of hard-boiled crime fiction. His two novels set in Key West (Setup on Front Street and Ghosts of Havana) both have a 50s-ish, Mickey Spillane feel to them, though set in the present day, and are well worth your time. (I found Setup on Front Street particularly appealing.)

Mike hasn't always been focused on writing tight, hard-hitting fiction. Like me, he was a free-lance musician in a previous life. (Mike was far better and more successful than was I.) It's this previous incarnation he draws on for his recently released story, "The Session."

Since I don't do that whole giving away the plot thing in reviews, suffice to say "The Session" is about a first call studio guitarist in LA whose paranoia about who might be coming up to usurp his status reaches unhealthy levels. It's easy to succumb to melodrama in a story like this; Dennis resists. Told through the eyes of the guitarist, the story shows all the hidden insecurities too many successful musicians are prone to, and the debilitating affects they can have on professional and personal lives. All of this is told in an understated, thoroughly believable style that lends gravitas to the message. Dennis doesn't need to make the reader feel any particular way. Read the story and you'll get it, or you're not paying attention.

As a recovering musician myself, I highly recommend "The Session" to musicians, as well as to anyone with a musician in their life. It will help either understand what being a free-lance musician is like as well as anything I've read or seen. It's available on Amazon for $0.99. It might be the most insightful dollar you ever spend.

Lots of ways to pre-order Res Mall

Worst Enemies, Book 1 of the Penns River series

Click the cover to buy

Grind Joint, Book 2 of the Penns River series

Click the cover to buy

Forte 4: A Dangerous Lesson Available Now! Click the image below to purchase.

Chicago Private Investigator Nick Forte’s official task is to find out what he can about Jennifer Vandenbusch’s new suitor, who fails to measure up in the eyes of the family matriarch, Jennifer’s grandmother. This seems par for the course for Forte, as his personal life has been leading him through a series of men who treat women badly, though none nearly as badly as the Thursday Night Slasher. Forte lives on the fringes of the investigation run by his old friend Sonny Ng until elements of Forte’s case and life dovetail with the Slasher investigation, leading to Forte discovering more about the crimes—and himself—than he wanted to know.

The Man in the Window

"...we see him getting rougher, tougher and darker book by book. There are multiple twists in the end, two cool sidekicks, good action scenes and some pretty nifty Chanderlisms in this book, adding up to a perfect PI read"--Sons of Spade blog

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (Nick Forte 2)

It's a kind of authorial magic that The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of works as a tribute and as a story, and that neither aspect interferes in the least with the other… I can imagine this book finding its way into a class on writing crime fiction as an example of how to pay tribute to one's predecessors while at the same time writing a story that can stand on its own. It's an impressive accomplishment.--- Peter Rozovsky, Detectives Beyond Borders, December 18, 2014

About Me

Two of my Nick Forte Private investigator novels (A SMALL SACRIFICE and THE MAN IN THE WINDOW) received nominations for Shamus Awards. I also write a series of police procedurals set in the economically depressed town of Penns River PA, published by Down & Out Books. A non-fiction essay, “Chandler’s Heroes,” appeared in Spinetingler Magazine online in October of 2013.
I live in Laurel MD with The Beloved Spouse.